City Lights, Empty Streets

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Driving at night changes a city. The traffic thins, the lights blur into lines, and your thoughts get louder than the radio. This tape was made for driving alone through the city at night, thinking, so it keeps a steady, unhurried pulse rather than a racing one. It's there to keep you company and keep you alert, not to push your foot down.

It opens in the glow of synths. Kavinsky's "Nightcall" is the natural first song for a night drive, slow and heavy, with a vocoder voice, and The Midnight's "Sunset" carries on in the same retro, neon-lit style. Washed Out's "Weightless" softens things into haze before MGMT's "Time to Pretend" and M83's "Midnight City" lift the energy, the second with its wordless synth hook and a saxophone at the end. Then Lana Del Rey's "Video Games" slows everything right down, all strings and a voice close to the microphone.

The middle is more restless. The Kid LAROI's "Stay" is quick and anxious under its shine, Télépopmusik's "Breathe" is downtempo and dreamy, and Adele's Bond theme "Skyfall" brings a slow, orchestral weight. Incubus' "Drive" is a gentle acoustic song about not letting fear do the steering. Gorillaz' "On Melancholy Hill" and Daughter's "Youth" close it out, the first bittersweet and bouncing, the second quiet and aching, for the last stretch before you park.

All of it comes from this century, held together by synths, reverb and voices that sound a little far away. It works for a long drive home as well as a loop around town with nowhere in particular to go. Open it as a YouTube playlist before you set off, keep the volume where you can still think, and keep your eyes on the road rather than the screen. When you get home and want to wind down, make a slower tape for that moment.